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Hubby and I have had a quite productive… and quite quiet… day! We got some stray frames painted, and framed a bunch of stuff that was lying on our work table. (Chris is still framing as I type. He’s a really good sport about it, but I’ve probably mentioned that before.) And I finished the painting details on a few special orders.

It feels good to get a few things done.

We even got to the bottom of the pile of
dishes we’ve been battling all week.

Hubby and I have been squeezing in lots of frame-making and art-making time this past week! I’ve had a couple of special orders that HAD to get in the mail… one is on its way, and the other should go out tomorrow! That is cause for rejoicing! I LOVE it when I can turn “To Do’s” into “Did Its!”

Anyway… short blog post today… but I just wanted to let you know that I got those Valentine papercuttings up on the Shop today! After lots of scanning and uploading, they are finally online. And if I keep on “Did-It-ing” this week, we can get them to folks by Valentine’s Day!

Today has been a Very Busy Saturday! Whew! Lots of errands to run, lots of things to pack up, and pick up… and I STILL haven’t gotten to the pile of dishes in the kitchen.

They can wait.

We’ve been working to shuffle things around in our Shop, so please ignore the dust over there. I’ve figured out how to make homemade links, and went a little crazy with it. So I’m trying to figure out how many of those little links I actually need. (If you take a peek at my “categories” on the sidebar, you’ll soon realize I have organizational issues.)

I added a few things back on our Etsy site… mostly just for fun, because Etsy’s a fun and creative place to poke around. There’s a link to it in the Shop. But here’s one too, just in case you can’t find it!

Mostly, we have some sweet (and cheap!)
postcard-size watercolors on there.
Original… no two will be alike!

Wanted to do a quick post to mention our girls Jordan and Kate‘s Etsy site! These two were together 24-7 for about seventeen years…

They crafted, knitted, sewed, read, watched movies, fought, laughed, made music, re-enacted, played dress-up (isn’t that the same thing?), giggled, stayed up late, fought, studied, cooked, cleaned, did hair, did make-up… together. It was a really big huge ginormous adjustment for them (and Mom & Dad too!) when Jo moved all the way across the country with her Hubby Luke three years ago. However, they recently came up with a business idea that will let them work together again…

It might be a hard row to hoe, but they’re hard at it! They’re making some sweet little doo-dads, selling vintage bits and pieces, and hoping to branch into fashion. They’ve even managed to hire some famous models to show off their work.

So, if you get a chance, pop over to their Etsy Site…

There is a story behind the name… You know my last post, the one about the having a “proper visage?” Well, when the girls were in the American Girls stage of their life, we read somewhere that Puritans often gave children “character trait” names. Character traits that they hoped the child would develop as they grew older. It didn’t take long for us to come up with a couple… Patience and Grace. SomeBody often rushed through projects in a hurry, never read the directions (wonder where she gets THAT from?), and hated waiting. SomeBodyElse had a tendency to walk headfirst into walls while reading books (doesn’t EVERYONE read while walking?) and has broken the same toe and the same nose multiple times. If you want to find out Who is Whogo visit their site!

And while you’re at it, say a prayer for me because I put up official blackmail pictures on here and may be disowned!

Hello folks! We’ve been working tonight on getting our long-neglected Etsy site up and running again. Hopefully, we’ll be putting some of our picture frames on there, but all we managed tonight was to upload a set of small scherenschnitte… Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme. I added them in the correct order (like the old S & G song) but forgot that they would show up backward, so the song reference lost something in the translation.

On a happy note, we saw PEOPLE in the store today! Mom and I have been getting a little lonely wondering where everyone was hiding, but we had folks in all day today! And they were happy people, which means a lot to two lonely shopkeepers! We had tea and discussed its many virtues with a lovely Scottish lady who was nearly 90 years old. She had played 9 holes of golf before she came to the store today with her two daughters. I hope I’m doing that good at 90!

Hello folks! We had a wonderful Christmas and are starting to settle into the winter routine here at the Frey house. The hustling and bustling is over for a while, and once again we’re resolving to start making presents in January!

Remind me that I said that next year.

One of our projects was exceedingly messy, but fun. And to add to the thrill we did it on the 22nd of December. And then prayed that it would harden by Christmas. And then tried to figure out how to wrap these heavy concrete things! We do plenty of last minute, hair-brained Christmas projects, but my advice to everyone crafty out there is to try a new project out earlier in December to see how things will turn out. And also find somebody sweet enough to mix very thick concrete in small batches by hand for 5 hours straight.

You can remind me next year that I said that also.

They ended up turning out great, though, and were such a hit that we’re going to make herb markers for the store this spring! We had some concrete left over, so Chris decided to make some more yesterday. (He must not have minded the mixing!) We just listed them on our Etsy site, which we’ve decided to use “just for fun.” We weren’t planning on selling these online because they’re so heavy, but we realized we can stuff them into Priority Flat Rate boxes and get them out at a semi-reasonable price.

And before I sign out, I must share with you yesterday’s “Frey Family Quote of the Day”…

Kate came downstairs after working nearly all day in the “workroom” (this is the place upstairs that is supposed to be our craft room, but actually is a catch-all for things outgoing and incoming and everything in-between!). She said to her father, and I quote:

“Daddy, come up and see my project and let me show you what you need to do!“

Today the birds thought Spring had sprung! Temperatures rose to about 60 degrees, the wind was warm, and the sky was blue. Perfect day for hanging out laundry. (Last week my laundry FROZE on the line! I brought in a frozen flannel pillowcase to show Chris!) It was also perfect for putting me in the mood to paint some singing birds…

This one is very heavily stained, and will look nice and primitive! The banner area was an experiment, and turned out pretty neat… I wasn’t sure what to do with the tree as it went behind the banner, but I’m happy with it!

Kate set up an Etsy shop this week… she’s been busy stitching up hairbows and wristlets from vintage fabric, and is working on some make-do’s. (I think “re-purpose” is the correct term nowadays!) If you get a chance, pop on over to see what she’s listed! We have bits of fabric and fluff all over the family room, but that’s a pretty common occurrence around here. She also had an issue with her truck window today… it, um, fell into the door. Two very able mechanics came to the rescue, though, and had her fixed up in no time flat! Thanks guys… we owe you!

Our family went on a Christmas house tour this past Saturday night, and saw some very sweet and lovely homes. My favorite was the home of a primitive artist… every nook and cranny was filled with creative ideas, and I couldn’t take it all in. On the snack table was a really cute idea… I ate one and brought one home so I wouldn’t forget how to make them…

Snitching a few minutes away from my morning routine to write a quick post about what we’ve been doing!

First of all, we’ve been filling and updating the Gallery part of the website… It sure takes a lot of time to upload all those pictures, get them the right size, and… hardest of all… to figure out what size they are once they’re framed! I think in terms of their “going into the frame” size, not what dimensions they are when hanging on the wall. Hubby rattled off a formula for me to add to each side of the finished picture, but I resorted to climbing ladders, pulling down frames of various sorts and using the old-fashioned ruler. Much easier than doing math, in my book. He just shook his head.

We’ve also started a shop on Etsy! We thought it might be a good idea to put items that are “ready to go” for sale there. When I first checked out Etsy last summer, it didn’t seem like traditional crafts would fit in, but I was in for a big surprise when we joined up! There’s quite a variety there. I’m trying to put a link directly to our Etsy shop on the Home Page of our website, but so far I’ve had no luck at getting it to work. I’ll keep trying, though! Anyway… I think this link will work… Thistle Dew Mercantile on Etsy.

Another related item is that I’ve joined the Farmgirl Flair group… a gaggle of ladies from Mary Jane’s Farmgirl Connection that have sites on Etsy. I’ve not seen my bio on there yet, but the link to our site is on the sidebar, so if my feeble attempts at making the link work do not work, then you can always get there from there. Or you can go to Etsy and search titles for “FGF” or user names for “ThistleDewMercantile” (all squished together) to find a few of our pieces.

Well, now that I’ve done my early morning link-making calisthenics (8 in this post!), perhaps I’ll go and attempt that Etsy link on the Home Page. (Ha! Make that 10!) Have a great Wednesday!